Robocop

Review Numero Tres!

Oh Dear.

Full disclosure, I really enjoyed the 1980's version by Paul Verhoeven so it's going to be hard for me to be unbiased here.

Take a shot every time you read the word Robot.

Also spoilers.

In the far off future of 2028, Detroit still remains a breeding ground for violence and crime, the powerhouse company Omnicorp has robot soldiers overseas rather than fleshy soldiers and wants to bring them to the states for use as law enforcement. The original film is known for its moral messages about humanity that echoes throughout its entirety, the new one does include some messages. There is a scene early on after we see Samuel L. Jacksons character, a charismatic TV host (and one of the films few saving graces.) speaking with a reporter out in a war zone witnessing how the robotic soldiers handle things. What ensues is a horrific shoot out which mirrors the use of unmanned drones in our society. It's a powerful message but gets dropped almost immediately after the scene ends, a wasted effort really.

Soon enough we meet our hero Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) he's a likable enough tough guy cop who's also a family man, and his relationship with his wife and son is quickly established as being incredibly ordinary. That is until his car explodes due to a bomb planted by a crime boss. Uh oh. Omnicorp jumps on the bandwagon after Raymond Sellers the companies CEO (played menacingly by Michael Keaton/Batman) they need to show the world that robots are A OK, so with consent from Murphy's distraught wife Clara (an emotion she plays for the remainder of the film) they get him suited up and Robocop is born. 

Waking up Murphy meets Dr Norton (Gary Oldman) a compassionate scientist at Omnicorp who created Robocop and is at odds with Raymond Sellers. slowly Murphy realizes he can't move and see's himself in the classic chrome suit, on further asking to see what's left of him the suit pulls away and both Murphy and the audience realize he's now nothing more than a face, brain, a pair of lungs and a right hand? This scene would have been great if it wasn't for the hand, I get where they're coming from, on one side he's still a human with a conscience and on the other he's the metallic and iron hand of the law but the one human hand makes him look comical, and it's without a doubt impractical. Would you punch a washing machine with your hand? Same basic concept considering he fights predominantly giant robots. 

Another interesting deviation from the original is that Murphy retains his humanity from the get go, he even has a flip up visor for his face as apposed to the bolted on one (a monumental scene in the 80's version) between awkwardly trying to remain a family man despite the leash put on him by Omnicorp we get some of the better moments of the film, Rick Mattox (Jackie Earle Haley) plays a generic douche bag who puts Murphy through his paces in training exercises, we see through the robot visor how Robocop fights crime using the power of trigonometry and an overuse of the colour red. 

I paint a bad picture but it surprised me how much better it was than I had imagined. I mean the new black suit is cool right? That isn't to say this is something to immediately go out and see, while not being an awful film it does drag along slowly and is laden with one dimensional (some would say robotic) characters who you feel nothing towards. We live in hope that the trend of rebooting classic 80's movies ends here. 

I'm looking at you Die Hard.